November 9, 2017

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Visa swaps payment cards for NFC gloves at the Winter Olympics

by John_A

Visa is very fond of showing off its tap-to-pay technology at the Olympics, and that’s truer than ever with the 2018 Winter Olympics around the corner. The payment giant is selling a trio of NFC-equipped gadgets to help you shop at the PyeongChang games, most notably a set of winter gloves. Yes, you can pay for that souvenir without freezing your hands as you reach for a credit card or even your phone. You won’t have to use them or the other devices at the games, but they’ll come with prepaid values of between 30,000KRW to 50,000KRW ($27 to $45) to encourage shopping in South Korea. Visa hasn’t offered pricing.

The other two items are considerably subtler. There are four commemorative lapel pins ($4.50 each) that you can load with prepaid funds, and a flexible NFC sticker that you can attach to all kinds of objects and accepts prepaid values as high as $180.

If you want any of them, you’ll probably have to wait until you’re visiting the country. Visa is currently selling all three through South Korea’s Lotte Card (both online and in customer centers), and they’ll otherwise be available through Olympic Superstores. Really, these are technology demos that just happen to be useful in other parts of the world. And that’s a bit of a shame — people in many colder climates would likely appreciate those gloves.